Earthfiles investigative reporter Linda Moulton Howe discussed details of a "Planet Nine" in our solar system; a professor's finding of stars with peculiar pulsations that might be indicators of ET life; and the danger of extinction this century for the cheetah and giraffe. The announcement, a year ago, of a 9th Planet, ten to twenty times the mass of Earth, is one of the greatest astronomical mysteries as we enter 2017. She spoke with the discoverer of the planet, Prof. Michael Brown, an astronomer at Caltech, who ironically was responsible for knocking Pluto out of the 9th planet category, and into dwarf planet status. Brown shared that he's using telescopes in Hawaii to nail down Planet Nine's location. He believes it was once near Uranus and Neptune, but its orbit was jostled and it was thrown out much further in a slingshot effect. Further, he explained, the new planet's mass is so large that it causes our entire solar system, including the sun, to tilt at 6 degrees. More details here.

In November 2016, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific published a study by Prof. Ermanno F. Borra, Astronomer at the University Laval in Quebec, Canada, of 2.5 million stars recorded by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Prof. Borra's surprising finding is that 234 stars, all yellow sequence like our sun, are emitting peculiar rapid pulsations of color modulations several billion times a second. Nothing else natural in the known universe does such rapid pulsing, Prof. Borra told Linda. While he strongly suspects the pulsations are ETI (extraterrestrial intelligence) signals, he's asking other astronomers and astrophysicists to help study the anomalous pulsations. More info.

Linda said she was stunned by recent announcements from wildlife conservation organizations that two iconic Earth animals are in danger of extinction. One is the cheetah, the fastest land animal in the world. The animal's natural habitat has decreased greatly as Africa's human population has expanded and extended into the environment, Sarah Durant, Ph.D., a Senior Researcher with the Wildlife Conservation Society told Linda. Further, many of these extraordinary cats are being killed for bush meat and their beautiful, spotted skins. More info.

There has been a disturbing 40% decline in the giraffe population since 1987. "Giraffes have already become extinct in seven countries in Africa and are on their way to extinction by the end of this century if their rapid decline is not stopped," said Julian Fennessy, Ph.D., the Director of the Giraffe Conservation Foundation in Namibia, which has set up a fund to help giraffes flourish in the wild. Further details.

2017 Astrological Predictions

First hour guest, astrologer Kenneth Bowser shared predictions of a large earthquake and a major stock market correction in 2017. Based on aspects in the western sidereal astrological US chart, as well as aspects in the sky, he has concluded that the market will be rocked in February and March and begin a year-long decline. It gets worse in the summer, he continued, when Saturn and Neptune are in aspect as they were in October 1929, when the stock market crashed. Astrological transits strongly suggest that a major earthquake will hit the Los Angeles Basin in Southern California, the largest since the 1994 Northridge quake, in late February or early March, he added.